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    Rory McIlroy Looks for the Magic He Conjured Last Year

    Rory McIlroy’s ranking survived a weekend scare. With Scottie Scheffler close behind and Jon Rahm surging, his outing in Dubai might suggest a lot about how long it will last.DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Since Rory McIlroy arrived in the United Arab Emirates over the weekend, he has seen his No. 1 world ranking preserved by virtue of another man’s missed putt in California, been drawn into a driving-range drama over whether he ignored a defector to LIV Golf and had a tee thrown his way in retaliation, and mentioned how he was served a subpoena on Christmas Eve.But on Thursday, after one of the more bizarre tournament preludes in recent memory, McIlroy is expected to play a competitive round for the first time in 2023 and give his sport a glimpse at whether he has the form that last year rekindled some of the fever that followed him earlier in his career.“I’ve been obviously practicing at home and practicing well, but it’s always first tournament of the year, getting back on to the golf course, just trying to get comfortable again with shots on the course and visuals and all that sort of stuff,” McIlroy said Wednesday in Dubai, where he had a debacle last January but a good-enough showing in November to win the season points crown for the DP World Tour, as the European Tour is currently marketed.“I’m sure it will be a little bit of rust to start the week, but hopefully I can shake that off,” he continued.In some respects, the scrutiny has never been greater. When McIlroy last won a major championship, he was 25 years old and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund was not underwriting a splashy rival to the world’s top men’s golf tours. He is now 33, with a frustrating record of close calls but newfound stature as arguably the golf establishment’s pre-eminent spokesman against LIV.He has spent much of the past year publicly answering questions about the Saudi-backed circuit — in response to one on Wednesday, for instance, he effectively called Greg Norman, LIV’s chief executive, weak — and privately crafting a response to it. He played exceptional golf, nevertheless, winning the European Tour points title, capturing the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup and finishing no worse than eighth place in 2022’s majors. The price, he suggested Wednesday, was exhaustion and a decision to “sort of distance myself from the game of golf” for a spell.After he played an exhibition event with Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Tiger Woods on Dec. 10, he stashed his clubs and only picked them up again this year. Holding to his preference to start a calendar year’s competitions in the Middle East, he exercised his right to skip the PGA Tour’s Tournament of Champions in Hawaii. He has held the No. 1 ranking, which he reclaimed in October, anyway, but Scottie Scheffler nearly took it back on Sunday, and Jon Rahm is threatening, having won two tournaments this year, both of them at 27 under par. (Rahm could essentially seize the top ranking on Saturday, when the PGA Tour’s event at Torrey Pines, where he won the 2021 U.S. Open, will conclude.)A Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 6A new series. More

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    PGA Tour Seeks to Add Saudi Wealth Fund to Lawsuit Over LIV Golf

    A federal judge will decide whether one of the tour’s leading avenues to investigate and challenge a new rival can be expanded.The PGA Tour intensified its legal fight against LIV Golf on Tuesday, when it asked a federal judge in California to let it add Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund to a lawsuit that has become one of its principal ways to investigate — and try to undercut — the circuit that has assaulted the tour’s customary dominance.The request, filed in the Federal District Court in San Jose, Calif., where LIV and the PGA Tour have argued for months over matters like antitrust law and contract interference, came as the two sides braced for a ruling about whether tour lawyers might depose Yasir al-Rumayyan, the wealth fund’s governor. The fund, formally known as the Public Investment Fund, effectively owns most of LIV.But with a judge’s decision pending and potentially months of appeals ahead, the tour sought another way to examine and retaliate against Riyadh’s entry into men’s professional golf. In Tuesday’s filing, the tour also asked to add al-Rumayyan to its suit.“Documents produced by LIV reveal that P.I.F. and Mr. al-Rumayyan were instrumental in inducing players to breach their tour contracts,” the tour told the judge Tuesday, when it complained that the wealth fund and its leader had been “exercising near absolute authority” over the circuit.The wealth fund has previously rejected the tour’s accusations that it and al-Rumayyan dominate LIV, which has used condensed schedules and enormous contracts to entice players such as Bryson DeChambeau, Sergio García, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Cameron Smith to leave the PGA Tour for the league. LIV, which announced a decidedly modest American television rights deal last week, is expected to begin its 14-stop 2023 season next month in Mexico.Phil Mickelson, left, with al-Rumayyan during LIV Golf’s inaugural tournament last year at Centurion Golf Club near London.Andy Rain/EPA, via ShutterstockJudge Beth Labson Freeman will consider the tour’s request and weigh factors such as whether the tour acted with sufficient haste to amend its lawsuit and whether its request is in good faith and not a mere stalling tactic.A Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 6A new series. More

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    LIV Golf Series Reaches TV Deal With The CW

    After its debut season was relegated to internet platforms, the circuit that includes Phil Mickelson and Cameron Smith will be on the CW network in 2023.LIV Golf, at last, has a television deal.The new circuit, bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and the catalyst for a year of turmoil in men’s professional golf, said Thursday that its 54-hole, no-cut tournaments would air on the CW network and its app beginning next month.Although the arrangement is a milestone for LIV Golf, whose tournaments last year were relegated to internet streams even as it showcased stars like Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Cameron Smith, the deal also underscores the circuit’s short-term limitations and the challenges any alternative league faces in gaining entry into the American sports market.America’s top broadcasters were unlikely candidates for LIV Golf. CBS and NBC appeared unwilling to consider airing its events because of their close ties to the PGA Tour, and Disney-owned ABC was seen as a seemingly improbable landing spot because ESPN, which Disney also controls, streams many tour events. Another potential suitor, Fox, has stepped back from golf coverage in recent years.LIV Golf and CW officials did not immediately disclose the financial terms of the agreement, but a person familiar with the arrangement, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the contract’s details were confidential, said LIV had not purchased airtime from the network. Instead, the person said, the terms offered both sides mutual financial benefits.“Our new partnership between the CW and LIV Golf will deliver a whole new audience and add to the growing worldwide excitement for the league,” Dennis Miller, the network’s president, said in a statement. “With CW’s broadcasts and streams, more fans across the country and around the globe can partake in the LIV Golf energy and view its innovative competition that has reimagined the sport for players, fans and the game of golf.”The agreement is a reprieve for LIV, which has spent recent months staring down its skeptics who have criticized the new tour’s absence of a television deal, its limited attendance at tournaments and the PGA Tour’s retention of many of the world’s top players. LIV Golf is hoping that its second season, which will begin with a tournament in Mexico in late February, will lead to fan and financial breakthroughs, especially as it more fully embraces a model that emphasizes franchises..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.Learn more about our process.In December, when The New York Times disclosed a confidential McKinsey & Company analysis from 2021 that suggested that a Saudi-backed, franchise-filled golf league would face a tricky path to profitability and relevancy, a spokesman for the circuit said LIV was “confident that over the next few seasons, the remaining pieces of our business model will come to fruition as planned.”The McKinsey analysis considered a television deal a vital ingredient for a league’s success and suggested that the concept that became LIV could earn as much as $410 million from broadcast rights in 2028, if it settled into what it called a “coexistence” with the PGA Tour. But if the league remained mired in “start-up” status, the consultants wrote, it could expect no more than $90 million a year for its broadcast rights in 2028.In its antitrust case against the PGA Tour, which is not scheduled to go to trial before next January, LIV Golf has used its struggles to secure a television deal as evidence of what it sees as the long-dominant tour’s monopolistic behavior.The tour, which has television deals that will pay it billions of dollars in the coming years, has denied wrongdoing. But in a filing in August, LIV Golf’s lawyers asserted that the tour had “compromised” the new league’s prospects to reach a rights agreement and said that the tour had “threatened sponsors and broadcasters that they must sever their relationships with players who join LIV Golf, or be cut off from having any opportunities with the PGA Tour.”LIV also said that CBS officials had said “they cannot touch LIV Golf even for consideration” because of the network’s ties to the PGA Tour. (Paramount Global, which controls CBS, holds a minority stake in the CW. The tour also has a contract with Warner Bros. Discovery, another minority stakeholder in the CW.)LIV’s pursuit of a television deal proved more turbulent — or at least more public — than the last time its chief executive, Greg Norman, tried to build a rival to the PGA Tour. In 1994, when Norman rolled out plans for a new tour, he had buy-in from Fox, which had extended a 10-year commitment. The uprising ended quickly anyway.Despite the headwinds this time, Norman had projected confidence for months that LIV would secure some kind of contract. In November, he called a television deal “a priority” and predicted that one would be locked down “very, very soon.” More

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    Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship Players to Watch

    The defending champion, Thomas Pieters, is among those who could win the tournament.A new year on the DP World Tour brings new hope for players who have been around long enough to know how fickle and unforgiving the game can be from week to week — shot to shot — even for the best in the world.The Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, which begins on Thursday at Yas Links in the United Arab Emirates, should be no different. Some in the field will be in midseason form, while others will struggle, searching for answers before another season slips away.Here are five players to watch.Sepp StrakaStraka, 29, recorded his first PGA Tour victory at the Honda Classic last February and finished second at the Sanderson Farms Championship in October. Yet he also missed six cuts in a row in the middle of last season and missed three straight in November.His triumph at the Honda, in which he rallied from a five-stroke deficit with a four-under 66 in the final round, was the first on tour for an Austrian-born player. He had entered the week ranked No. 176 in the world.Straka, who lived in Austria before moving to the state of Georgia when he was 14, will have something to play for besides himself this year. He has a chance to be a member of Team Europe for the Ryder Cup matches in Rome.He opened the year by finishing tied for 21st at the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii.Henrik Stenson of Sweden last year at the P.G.A. Championship. He won his first LIV tournament, earning $4 million.Orlando Ramirez/USA Today Sports, via ReutersHenrik StensonStenson, who had been appointed Europe’s Ryder Cup captain in March, was removed in July after he joined the LIV Tour. Luke Donald was named as his replacement.This will be Stenson’s first appearance on the DP World Tour since the dismissal. He and the others who bolted for LIV have been allowed to participate in DP World Tour events pending the resolution of a court case.Stenson, from Sweden, won his LIV debut at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey by two strokes over Dustin Johnson and Matthew Wolff. He earned $4 million for the victory in July.Tommy Fleetwood of England last year at the Zozo Championship in Japan.Atsushi Tomura/Getty ImagesTommy FleetwoodOne of Europe’s top players in recent years, Fleetwood has not won a tournament on the PGA Tour. Yet he fared well last year in the major championships, signaling he might notch that first victory before too long.Fleetwood, from England, missed the cut at the U.S. Open at the Country Club in Brookline, Mass., but tied for 14th at the Masters in Augusta, Ga., tied for fifth at the P.G.A. Championship in Tulsa, Okla., and tied for fourth at the British Open in St. Andrews, Scotland. Fleetwood, who turns 32 on Thursday, was one of eight players to compile at least two top-5 finishes in the majors.Thomas Pieters of Belgium at last year’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, which he won. It was his sixth tournament victory since 2015.Ryan Lim/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThomas PietersPieters, 30, from Belgium, was the winner in Abu Dhabi last year — or, more precisely, the survivor.During Friday’s second round the winds kicked up to 40 miles per hour. Rory McIlroy summed up how many players were no doubt feeling: “I’ve never been so glad to get off a golf course.”Yet Pieters managed a two-over 74 that day to stay within striking distance of the lead. He finished a stroke ahead of Rafa Cabrera Bello and Shubhankar Sharma. Pieters, who has been ranked in the top 50 in the world, has also endured his share of difficulties.After winning three tournaments in Europe in 2015 and 2016, he went three years before he collected his fourth victory and then another two years before he picked up his fifth, which came in the 2021 Portugal Masters.No wonder the triumph on Yas Links in 2022, his sixth, was so gratifying.“I disappeared for a couple of years, I guess,” Pieters said after winning the tournament. “I’m so happy to be back.”Seamus Power of Ireland last year at Sea Island Resort’s Seaside Course in Georgia. He attended East Tennessee State University, where he won five tournaments.Cliff Hawkins/Getty ImagesSeamus PowerIn October, thanks to three straight rounds of 65, Power captured the Butterfield Bermuda Championship. A week later, he tied for third in the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba in Mexico. Then came a tie for fifth at the RSM Classic in Georgia. Of the 12 rounds in those three events, he broke 70 on 11 occasions. The other round was a one-under 70.Power, 35, from Ireland, attended East Tennessee State University where he won five tournaments including the Atlanta Sun Conference Championship twice.The next step for him is to be a real factor in the major championships. Power tied for ninth in last year’s P.G.A. Championship and tied for 12th at the U.S. Open. More

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    Change Proved Difficult for Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship

    Last year’s tournament was the first at a new course, Yas Links, and it proved to be a challenge, especially when the golfers played in high winds.For professional golfers it’s not familiarity that breeds contempt, it’s change. Thomas Pieters, the defending champion of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, said he was surprised by his win last year at Yas Links in the United Arab Emirates, which will host the tournament for the second straight year.“Although I won, at the beginning of the week, it wasn’t really a course I fancied or that stood out to my eye,” he said. Pieters, from Belgium, added that the previous venue, Abu Dhabi Golf Club, was a “beast of a golf course,” and that it took a “a proper ball striker to win there,” implying the opposite is true of the new venue for the championship, which begins on Thursday.The transition to Yas Links was compounded last year by strong winds during the second round of the tournament, with gusts up to 40 miles per hour, which wreaked havoc on golfers and their scores. After he finished tied for sixth last year, the defending champion, Tyrrell Hatton, told reporters on site, “I would love for a bomb to drop on it and blow it to oblivion, to be honest.”Much of Hatton’s fury was aimed at the course’s 646-yard par-5 18th hole. The long par 5 utilized the back tee box in the adverse conditions, leaving golfers no way to reach the green in two shots. “I hit a really good tee shot and still had 290 [yards to the] front,” Hatton said after the tournament. “It would be a much better finishing hole if you’re actually rewarded for hitting the fairway, which as it stands, you’re not.”Shane Lowry on the 18th hole of Yas Links during last year’s tournament. The par-5 hole proved to be a challenge for players in the windy conditions.Ryan Lim/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPieters said what made the course difficult was that it didn’t exactly play like a true links course, where firm conditions allow for players to use the ground to run the ball up onto playing surfaces.The modern professional game rewards aerial mastery, high soaring shots that land to precise yardages — a style of play that doesn’t exactly fit the design of Yas Links. Yet neither does playing it as a traditional links course, Pieters said. “It’s like playing funky links golf. You can’t really run it up on most of the greens — you have to fly it on, which makes it extra tricky.”Miguel Vidaor, the DP World Tour tournament director, said the goal for the course was to be “tough but fair.” Last year, he said, because of the wind conditions, the tournament organizers adjusted their original plans to make the course play firmer and faster.“We were on the limit all day long,” Vidaor said. “We backed off green speeds from high elevens [on the stimpmeter, a device that measures green speeds] and dropped the speed down to the mid tens. It’s an exposed golf course, and we need to be careful because there’s no shelter at all.” Vidaor and his team slowed the speeds by cutting the greens less often than usual, and watering them to allow the grass to grow overnight. Typically, tournament golf is played at a minimum speed of 11 to test players. The reduction of the speeds at Yas Links last year was a reflection of how severely the wind was blowing, which could cause balls to drift from their paths once putted.Barring conditions like the ones last year, Vidaor said he didn’t expect to change much in this year’s setup. Citing Hatton’s criticism last year, he said, “Eighteen is most unusual, but I think it’s a great par 5. It’s a three-shotter, which in the world of tournament golf, you don’t get very often these days.” He added that the course’s designer, Kyle Phillips, intended for it to play this way. Vidaor, who is a fan of Phillips’s work, said “I love a par 5 where par is a good score. Nothing wrong with that.”One of the real differences at Yas Links compared with most DP World Tour courses is its strain of grass, paspalum. Often used on seaside courses or in hot climates, it’s a drought-resistant turf that can thrive in adverse conditions, such as when sea mist falls on it. Bermuda grass, which is also often used in hot climates, can often get “grainy,” Vidaor noted, which affects shots on and around the greens, as that grain can have a grabbing effect on the ball. Paspalum, by contrast, lacks that.Also unique to Yas Links is that paspalum is the only turf grass on the property, which is slightly unusual in today’s modern agronomy at golf courses. Most courses have one type of fairway grass to account for the wear and tear of golf carts, while the greens will feature another type of grass to account for the best pure roll, as well as for the climatic conditions. The uniform quality of the course makes for a beautiful presentation, but also a uniform playing surface. “The consistency throughout the course was stunning,” Pieters said.Vidaor said that also came from controlling the mowing heights, where the grass on the greens was cut to 1.6 millimeters and the grass on the tees was cut to 3.5 millimeters. Fairways were at 6.5 millimeters. All this means that even in the desert in winter, the balls are going to move very fast and the course will have an immaculate appearance.Thomas Pieters, above, with his caddie, won last year’s tournament. Pieters said that he will enter this week’s competition with “lots of good memories from last year.”Kamran Jebreili/Associated PressPieters said that the undulations on the greens could be difficult for players to handle, and with greens running in the mid 11s, the slopes could also prove for difficult putting rounds. And even though it’s the second year for the tournament at Yas Links, Pieters added there still wasn’t the same comfort level as players had at Abu Dhabi Golf Club.“I mean, it caught everybody off guard,” he said. “We were so used to starting on the same course. We’d done our homework in past years and all of a sudden, we were given a completely different golf course.”Despite the criticism and tough conditions last year, Vidaor and the course manager, Corey Finn, will try to make the course harder. “Overall, our goal is to have firm greens as this presents a tougher challenge for the players,” Finn wrote in an email. “This year, having 12 months to prepare, we have performed more work on the greens over summer to try and achieve firmer surfaces.”Despite loving Yas Links a “little less” than the old course, Pieters said he will enter the week with “lots of good memories from last year” and feels good about his preparation, coming off a competitive layoff. “I’ve put in the work over the winter. I’m really fresh and my second daughter was born a couple months ago. So, I’m buzzed to go,” he added.Vidaor said his hopes were simple for the second year at Yas Links. “I’m really hoping that the more the guys play the course, the more they will like it,” he said. “Change is difficult for everybody. Nobody likes change.“After 16 years in the same place, it was, like, ‘Whoa, what’s this?’ But I think the more they play, I think the more they will enjoy it. And, you know, it’s a challenge. We have the best players in the world, and we want it tough.” More

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    Tony Jacklin Reflects on His Career and on LIV Golf

    He was on top of the world in 1970 after winning the British and U.S. Opens. And while he lived well, he said making money was never his top goal.The members of the DP World Tour, whose next event kicks off on Thursday at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship on Yas Links in the United Arab Emirates, owe a great deal to the European players who helped make the tour what it is today.That includes Tony Jacklin, the winner of the 1969 British Open, the 1970 United States Open and eight tournaments on the European Tour, now the DP World Tour.Jacklin, from England, also played a huge role in the Ryder Cup. A four-time captain from 1983 to 1989, he led Team Europe to two victories, including the first over the Americans since 1957.Jacklin, 78, reflected recently on his career, on the controversy over the Saudi-financed LIV Golf tour that guarantees entrants six-figure payouts and the game that has meant so much to him.The following conversation has been edited and condensed.When you won your two majors, what did that fame feel like?A Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 6A new series. More

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    Kathy Whitworth, Record-Holder for U.S. Golf Wins, Dies at 83

    Whitworth was a hall of famer who became the first woman’s pro golfer to earn more than $1 million.Kathy Whitworth, who joined the Ladies Professional Golf Association tour in the late 1950s when it was a blip on the national sports scene and who went on to win 88 tournaments, a record for both women and men on the United States tours, died on Saturday. She was 83.Whitworth was at a neighborhood Christmas party in Flower Mound, Texas, where she lived, when she collapsed and died soon after, Christina Lance, an LPGA spokeswoman, said.Whitworth, who turned pro at 19, was the LPGA Tour’s leading money winner eight times and became the first women’s pro to win more than $1 million in prize money when she finished third in the 1981 Women’s Open, the only major tournament she didn’t win. She earned more than $1.7 million lifetime in an era when purses were modest.“I would have swapped being the first to make a million for winning the Open, but it was a consolation which took some of the sting out of not winning,” she said in a profile for the World Golf Hall of Fame.Tiger Woods, with 82 victories on the PGA Tour, is the only active golfer anywhere near Whitworth’s total. Sam Snead, who died in 2002, is also credited with 82 PGA victories, and Mickey Wright won 82 times on the LPGA Tour.Known especially for her outstanding putting and bunker game and a fine fade shot that kept her in the fairways, Whitworth was a seven-time LPGA Player of the Year and won the Vare Trophy for lowest stroke average in a season seven times.The Associated Press named Whitworth the Female Athlete of the Year in 1965 and 1966 and she was inducted into the LPGA Tour and World Golf halls of fame.She won six tournaments considered majors during her career, capturing the Women’s PGA Championship three times, the Titleholders Championship twice and the Western Open once.“She just had to win,” her contemporary and fellow Hall of Famer Betsy Rawls told Golf Digest in 2009. “She hated herself when she made a mistake. She was wonderful to play with — sweet as she could be, nice to everybody — but oh, man, she berated herself something awful. And that’s what drove her.”Whitworth after winning the Women’s Titleholder Golf Tournament in Augusta, Ga., in 1966.Associated PressKathrynne Ann Whitworth was born on Sept. 27, 1939, in the West Texas town of Monahans, but grew up in the southern New Mexico community of Jal (named for a local rancher, John A. Lynch). Jal was the headquarters of the El Paso Natural Gas Company, which drove the regional economy; Whitworth’s parents, Morris and Dama Whitworth, owned a hardware store for many years.Whitworth, the youngest of three sisters, enjoyed tennis as a youngster, then began playing golf at 15 under the tutelage of Hardy Loudermilk, the pro at a nine-hole course in Jal.“That was more than 10 years before open tennis tournaments were allowed,” she told The New York Times in 1981. “Golf was then the only pro sport for women so I decided to stick with golf.”Loudermilk viewed her as possessing exceptional potential and referred her to Harvey Penick, the head pro at the Austin Country Club, who became one of golf’s most prominent teachers, best known for his 1992 instructional, “Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book” (1992), written with Bud Shrake.“Early on, Harvey told me in a kind but firm way, ‘I think I can help you, but you have to do what I say,’” Whitworth recalled in “Kathy Whitworth’s Little Book of Golf Wisdom” (2007), written with Jay Golden. “I just said, ‘Yes sir.’ “If he told me I had to stand on my head, I would have stood on my head.”Penick stressed the need to adopt a grip that assured a square club face, something Whitworth never forgot. “Every time I got into a slump or started hitting the ball poorly, I had Harvey Penick to go to,” she wrote.Whitworth captured the New Mexico State Amateur title twice, briefly attended Odessa College in Texas and turned pro in December 1958.The LPGA was struggling at the time despite featuring brilliant golfers like Wright, Rawls and Louise Suggs. Galleries were relatively sparse and touring players sought out low-budget hotels and traveled by auto.Whitworth didn’t win a tournament until her fourth year on the tour, when she captured the Kelly Girl Open. She cited her second victory, later in 1962, at the Phoenix Thunderbird Open as giving her the confidence to withstand pressure.Whitworth was approaching the final hole at that event, dueling for the title with Wright, who was playing behind her. She didn’t know Wright’s score at the time since there was no leader board, but, “I made a decision to go at the hole,” she told Golf Digest, although “the pin was stuck behind a trap.”“I whipped it in there about 15 feet and made the birdie,” she recalled.She won by four strokes and established herself as a force on the tour with eight victories in 1963.Whitworth recorded her 88th LPGA victory in May 1985 at the United Virginia Bank tournament. She competed on the women’s senior circuit, the Legends Tour, then retired from competitive golf in 2005.In her later years, Whitworth lived in the Dallas suburb of Flower Mound, gave golf lessons, conducted clinics and organized a junior women’s tournament in Fort Worth. A wooden case at her home course, Trophy Club Country Club in Roanoke, Texas, houses numerous trophies and 88 nickel-plated plaques engraved with details of her victories.Whitworth is survived by her longtime partner, Bettye Odle.Whitworth was a sturdy 5 feet 9 inches but didn’t deliver awesome drives and wasn’t viewed as a charismatic figure.“Some people are never meant for stardom, even if they are the star type,” the Hall of Famer Judy Rankin told Sports Illustrated in 1983, reflecting on Whitworth’s unflashy persona.“It’s not necessary for people to know you,” Whitworth told the magazine. “The record itself speaks. That’s all that really matters.”Alex Traub More

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    Masters Tournament Will Let LIV Golf Players Compete in 2023

    The decision by Augusta National Golf Club is an interim victory for the upstart circuit, but other troubles loom.Augusta National Golf Club will allow members of the breakaway LIV Golf league to compete in the Masters Tournament, the first men’s golf major of 2023.The decision by the private club, which organizes the invitational tournament and has exclusive authority over who walks its hilly, pristine course each April, is an interim victory for LIV, the upstart operation bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund to much of the golf establishment’s fury.“Regrettably, recent actions have divided men’s professional golf by diminishing the virtues of the game and the meaningful legacies of those who built it,” Fred S. Ridley, Augusta National’s chairman, said in a Tuesday statement. “Although we are disappointed in these developments, our focus is to honor the tradition of bringing together a pre-eminent field of golfers this coming April.”But the approach announced by the club on Tuesday — continuing to rely on qualifying categories that often hinge on performances in PGA Tour competitions or other majors, or on certain thresholds in the Official World Golf Ranking — threatens to limit access for LIV players as more years pass, which could ultimately make it more difficult for LIV to attract new golfers.Ridley said Augusta National evaluates “every aspect of the tournament each year, and any modifications or changes to invitation criteria for future tournaments will be announced in April.”LIV declined to comment on Tuesday.The organizers of the British Open, the P.G.A. Championship and the U.S. Open have not said how or whether they will adjust their 2023 entry standards in the wake of LIV Golf’s emergence this year. Augusta National, though, has now offered what could be a template for LIV’s short-term relationships with the major tournaments.Augusta National, for instance, did not abandon its tradition of offering past winners lifetime entry into the tournament, a reprieve for the six LIV players who have already earned green jackets: Sergio Garcia, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Patrick Reed, Charl Schwartzel and Bubba Watson. Recent winners of other majors will still qualify for the 2023 Masters, clearing the way, for at least a little longer, for players like Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka and Cameron Smith.And Augusta, which has become entangled in the Justice Department’s antitrust inquiry into men’s professional golf, will continue to admit players who are in the top 50 in the world rankings at certain times.The world ranking system is a weapon that is as subtle and technical (and disputed) as it is consequential and, for some golfers, determinative. LIV players do not currently earn ranking points for their 54-hole, no-cut events, and they have fallen in the rankings as other golfers have kept playing tournaments on eligible tours. In July, LIV applied to be included in the rankings, and more recently, it partnered with the MENA Tour, which is a part of the system, to try to keep its players in the mix.But the board that oversees the rankings includes golf executives whose reactions to the breakaway series have ranged from skeptical to hostile, and the group has not embraced LIV’s requests. If major tournaments like the Masters continue to use world ranking points as a qualifying method, at least some players will see their entry prospects evaporate. A sustained reliance on PGA Tour events as other qualifying avenues will also stanch access for LIV players.Whether LIV golfers can play the majors may be crucial to the upstart’s prospects in the years ahead. Beyond golfing glory, major championship winners earn heightened public profiles, and they are more likely to attract lucrative sponsorship arrangements. If LIV’s players face extraordinary constraints on their chances simply to reach a major tournament field, much less to win the competition, the league may have trouble recruiting new players.The possibility of exclusion from the majors was enough to warrant a brief legal spat over the summer, when the LIV players Talor Gooch, Matt Jones and Hudson Swafford asked a federal judge to order their participation in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs. Gooch, Jones and Swafford had all failed to qualify for the 2023 majors through other means, and their lawyers warned that keeping them from the playoffs would probably end their chances at doing so. Heeding the arguments of the PGA Tour, which said that “antitrust laws do not allow plaintiffs to have their cake and eat it too,” the judge turned back their request.Augusta National’s decision on Tuesday, fleeting as it might ultimately prove, is still a milestone for LIV, which has not signed a television contract or attracted marquee sponsors. Those symptoms of trouble have only deepened concerns about the long-term viability of the new tour, which many critics regard largely as a means for Saudi Arabia to sanitize its reputation as a human rights abuser. Last week, the circuit acknowledged that its chief operating officer, who was widely seen as integral to its business ambitions, had resigned.In recent months, Greg Norman, LIV’s chief executive, urged major tournaments to “stay Switzerland” and allow his circuit’s players to participate.“The majors need the strength of field,” Norman, a two-time British Open victor and three-time runner-up at the Masters, said last month. “They need the best players in the business. They want the best competition for their broadcasting, for their sponsors, all the other things that come with it.”But LIV stands to benefit, too. A victory in a major by one of its players, LIV supporters have said, would give the circuit greater legitimacy.“If it is a LIV player who wins a major next year,” Norman said, “that goes to show you how we work within the ecosystem.” More